It is easy to find a cheap rental car in Portugal – the cheapest vehicles are usually from the city class of hire cars.

Find the best prices for city rental car class in Porto Airport

Most popular city cars in Portugal rental fleets are VW Up!, Peugeot 108, Citroen C1, Opel Adam, Skoda CitiGo, Seat Mii, Renault Twingo, Chevrolet Spark, Hyundai i10, Fiat 500, Fiat Panda, Lancia Ypsilon, Ford Ka and Kia Picanto.

For more choice and space, please take a look at the economy class vehicles in Porto Airport.

The new kid on the block is the Opel Karl.

Opel Karl car rental

The new Opel Karl is fairly spacious inside for a small car – but absolutely no racer.

The city car rental class – cheapest vehicles for hire

When attaching the term ‘city car’ to a small vehicle, the basic condition is that the car is small – usually less than 3,60 meters long.

A modern cheap rental car, however, often come with 5 doors either as an option to the 3 door version or, as the  Opel Karl with 5 doors as standard. The 5-door configuration is very useful in a cheap rental car.

Some city cars like the Opel Adam and the Fiat 500 are only available with 3 doors.

Se more about the charming evergreen Fiat 500.

Classed below the city class of cars, the stricly 2 person cars of minuscule size and with very limited sporty ambitions are represented with the Smart ForTwo cars – which are available for rent in some locations in Portugal, but due to the two seats only and no room for a normal size suitcase, they tend to have very limited demand by rental customers.

Opel Karl – ultra compact mini with maxi interior

Even with the new Opel Karl, the most popular cheapest car for rent in Porto Airport did not change from VW Up! and Fiat 500. The Opel Karl is a strong contender still in the city car rental class.

Opel Karl is the new small car front runner for GM in Europe, where the Chevrolet brand of cars has been withdrawn all together.

Chevrolet Spark is one of the few remaining Chevrolet rental vehicles and the spiritual predecessor of the Opel Karl (in the UK: the Vauxhall Viva). All Chevrolet Spark vehicles have been sold from the rental fleets.

The new Opel Karl is, in fact, partly based on the Spark, but at the same time it is a step up from the Spark with a much better engine, optional modern connections for the iPhone-generation and most importantly more space inside. Even tall drivers up to 1,95 meters can find a comfortable position behind the wheel in the new Opel Karl/Vauxhall Viva.

Opel Karl rear hatch open

Opel Karl boot size.

The engine in the Opel Karl is always the same. It is a 75 bhp 1,0 liter non-turbo gasoline engine with excellent fuel economy. Going over 100 km/h, however, does not really make sense in the Karl. The new Opel is much more a fun runabout for the city driver.

The boot in the Opel Karl will swallow 195 litres which is not bad at all for a small city-car.

VW Up! / Skoda Citigo / Seat Mii – cheap rental cars

The VW Up! is closely related with its Spanish and Czech sisters the Seat Mii and the Skoda Citigo.

In fact, for the European market, all three of them are built in Bratislava in Slovakia and they are exactly the same car with the same engines, same everything, but with sligtly different badges and small tweaks to the front and rear.

The production started in 2011 and the model is not as fresh as it used to be. It is still very popular though.

VW Up 5 door

The VW Up is frequently offered as the cheapest rental car in Porto Airport.

Peugeot 108 / Toyota Aygo / Citroen C1 – city car rental class

A few years ago, a new and much more modern version of the hugely successfull co-production between Toyota and French PSA (Peugeot & Citroen) was launched.

The Peugeot 108, the Citroen C1 and the Toyota Aygo are different in looks, but very much the same cars inside.

In terms of modern solutions, they have the upper hand against VW Up, Seat Mii and Skoda CitiGo, and since they are traditionally front wheel driven, the new double act Renault Twingo and Smart Forfour, which are both rear engined, are less of a worry in most markets.

All three are built in Kolin in the Czech Republic in what is referred to as the TPCA plant.

Peugeot 108 and Citroen C1 are most often found as rental cars, but also the cool looking ‘cross-faced’ Toyota Aygo is available at certain rental car companies in Portugal.

Toyota Aygo

Toyota Aygo new model 2014-forward.

Renault Twingo / Smart ForFour – cheap rental car with rear wheel drive

Lots of thinking went into these two cars which are revolutionary by modern standards by having rear mounted engines and rear wheel drive.

It works surprisingly well, but maybe it has been too much of a revolution for some fleet owners in the rental car business.

Renault Twingo 2015

The cool Renault Twingo always has 5 doors – cheap rental car in Portugal

Not so many are found as rental cars, but you will at times be able to book a Smart Forfour or a Renault Twingo in Portugal with the engine in the same place as in a Porsche 911.

Both cars are built in Slovenia.

The rest of the mini-cars: Kia Picanto, Hyundai i10, Suzuki Celerio, Fiat Panda

As for the rest of the vast selection of mini-cars and city-cars, one contender always had a very strong presence at the car rental companies parking spaces in Portugal.

The Fiat Panda, being cheap to buy (much cheaper than the Fiat 500) and always with 5 doors, was the darling of the rental car industry in Portugal for years.

Being in the later part of its life cycle, the Fiat Panda resale values are not that great anymore, so rental companies tend to shift to more popular city cars for rental purposes. A company like Goldcar still has a load of Fiat Panda cars in the rental fleet.

Sometimes a really good deal is struck on South Korean cars like the Kia Picanto or the Hyundai i10 and the Thai/Indian produced Suzuki Celerio might also get some attention.

For the most of the cheap rental car fleet in Portugal, however, the European produced cars mentioned in the first part of this article dominate the offers for the cheapest rental car in Porto Airport.